Don't Fail Me Now(15)

“Hey,” Yvonne calls, and I look over to see her standing in the doorway, silhouetted by the garish restaurant lights. “There’s gonna be an assistant manager job opening up this summer. It’s salaried and everything, like $30K with benefits. If you want it, it’s yours. Could solve some of your problems.” She lets the door slam shut, and I hang my head, feeling heavy all over.

I should be happy. She’s right: Money like that would solve a lot of problems. If I took that job, I could pay for everything. I wouldn’t even need Mom . . . because for all intents and purposes, I would be Mom.

But I want more than that. I want more than a crappy service job and a house full of ghosts. I want more than the kitchen scraps. I want more than half the moon.

I don’t know what it is I want, exactly, but I know I want more than that.

? ? ?

Doing math at the register helps me calm down. Numbers soothe me, the way they play by the rules, always bending to my control, adding up the same every time, neat and easy. Even though I know the prices of everything by heart and can do the totals in my head, we also have a digitized screen that makes my job as easy as punching a button with the item name. So after a bit of therapeutic quesadilla equations, I let my brain drift and start doing other, more urgent tallies.

By some act of God, Goldie still runs, but the sum of her parts can’t be more than a few hundred bucks at this point—enough to buy me time with Aunt Sam, sure, but then what? Without a car, I’d still have to buy bus passes for the three of us, and the delicate balance of drop-off and pick-up times would be shot. It wouldn’t be worth it, especially since I really only need the money for three days. I wrack my brain for anything else I could pawn. Mom doesn’t have any decent jewelry she hasn’t already sold off, but we do have a good-sized TV and a lot of old furniture in okay shape that might sell on Craigslist for fifty bucks a pop. Of course, I wouldn’t be able to sell it tonight, but I could cut school tomorrow, which would be a relief, and probably get it done in a few hours if our ancient desktop—which loads web pages at the approximate speed of an octogenarian eating a plate of churros—cooperates.

I’m so busy mentally pricing family heirlooms that it takes me ten seconds to realize there’s a customer standing in front of me who’s just staring.

“I’m so sorry for the wait, sir,” I say with as much sincerity as I can muster. This guy can’t be much older than me, but he’s white and blond, and I’ve had enough experience with disgruntled customers to know when to play it safe and suck up to them, especially on a night like tonight when I’m phoning it in. I part my lips in some semblance of a friendly smile. “Welcome to Taco Bell. May I take your order?”

“Uh . . .” He looks up at the backlit menu that runs across the wall above my head. Great. One of those. It’s called fast food for a reason, people. If you don’t know what you want, please don’t get in line and waste my time.

“Sir,” I say, trying and failing to hold my faceful of fake cheer. “If you’re not ready to order, I’ll help the next customer, and when you decide, you just let me know.” The dinner rush is peaking now, with all three registers at least five people deep. I start to beckon the next person, an Asian woman who looks about eleven months pregnant, when Blondie holds up his hands.

“Wait, please,” he says. “I’m actually—”

I cock my head.

“I’m actually looking for someone,” he says. “Is Michelle Devereaux working tonight?”

“Who wants to know?” I’ve heard that line used by Mafia toughs in a whole bunch of movies and always wondered if it worked. Plus, this dude is starting to piss me off. And after Mr. Orioles yesterday, I can’t be too careful.

“Um, I do?” He laughs nervously.

I point to my enormous nametag, and his face turns even whiter than it already is, if that’s possible.

“You’re Michelle Devereaux?”

I nod, a little taken aback that he looks so shocked. Who is this guy? I don’t think he goes to my school, but whatever he wants, it can’t be good. Not with my luck the past few days.

“Are you going to order?” the pregnant lady asks loudly.

“Sir, if you’re not going to order, please step aside so I can help the other customers,” I say.

He takes a deep breath and leans in, sweat beading on his forehead, damp honey-colored locks of hair hanging in his eyes. “Okay, look, I’m really sorry to surprise you like this,” he says, keeping his voice low. “But my name is Tim—Tim Harper—and I think my stepsister, Leah, is related to you.”

“What?” I ask, shaking my head. “Listen, I don’t know what you want, but unless it’s a taco, I really need you to step aside. Other people are wai—”

“Her father’s name was Buck Devereaux,” he says quickly, his blue eyes darting nervously between my face and the napkin dispenser next to the register. “I mean, is Buck Devereaux. But he’s dying. And he asked her to find you, so I looked you up on Facebook—”

“I don’t even update my Facebook,” I snap. This is the part of the sentence I’m choosing to focus on, because everything that came before it has the makings of a tidal wave, and I can’t get dragged under right now. I used to pray for my father to come back, to show up on our doorstep begging forgiveness or magically appear in the parking lot at school, leaning on Goldie with graying temples and a sad smile and offering to take me out for a beer so he could explain everything. But some preppy kid showing up out of the blue during Family Circus on the worst week of my life and dropping the bomb that Buck is dying? That shit I did not sign up for. I look Tim straight in the eyes. “You can either order some food or you can get out of my face right now,” I whisper.